1. Field
This disclosure is generally related to publishing digital content. More specifically, this disclosure is related to gathering demographic information on users that consume a data stream over a network, such as the Internet, an Information Centric Network (ICN), a client-server architecture, or a peer-to-peer network.
2. Related Art
In the modern digital economy, content producers can publish their content in digital form through one or more streaming or broadcasting services to earn revenue through various revenue models. Music producers, for example, oftentimes license their music to online streaming radio stations that earn money by broadcasting advertisements to their listeners over a computer network. The music producers may also license their music content to music recommendation services that tailor song and advertisement selections to each consumer (e.g., the Pandora streaming service from Pandora Media Inc.).
Similarly, movie and television-show producers can license their digital content to video streaming services that allow consumers to view movies or shows over the Internet. Some of these video streaming services negotiate a licensing fee with each producer, and earn revenue by charging consumers a flat monthly fee (e.g., Netflix, Inc.), and/or by presenting advertising commercials to consumers (e.g., Hulu.com).
These streaming services typically attempt to secure a publisher's digital content by requiring their customers to use the service's custom software application to receive the media stream. Netflix and Hulu, for example, deploy proprietary video streaming applications that make it difficult for a user to illegally copy a media stream by not allowing the user to “save” the media stream to a local disc. However, it is possible for consumers to use third-party applications that snoop on network traffic in order to save the media stream to disc. Once the consumer has saved a copy of the media stream, it is possible for the consumer to illegally share the media stream anonymously given that the media streaming service typically transmits identical copies of the media stream to many consumers.
Cable and Satellite broadcasting companies, on the other hand, provide traditional television broadcasts to consumers over a secured digital infrastructure. A broadcasting company typically provisions a consumer's client device (e.g., as a set-top box device) when the consumer subscribes to a service from the broadcasting company. This provisioning process verifies that the client device is associated with a paying customer, and configures the device to detect and present the broadcasted media to the paying customer.
These broadcasting companies typically encrypt each media stream using a stream-specific key before broadcasting each media stream to a group of subscribers. Each client device receives a key from the broadcasting company (e.g., periodically), and uses the key to decrypt the media stream just before presenting the media stream to the user. However, it is possible for a consumer to save the broadcasted media stream to disk once the media stream has been decrypted, for example, by using a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) capture card on a computer. Also, because the broadcasting company transmits the same media stream to the group of consumers, it is possible for the consumer to duplicate and illegally share the media stream with others anonymously.